Local Post: Chinese-language haters in B.C. and people-swallowing sinkholes in Nova Scotia

Every Wednesday, the National Post rounds up Canada’s top local news stories. This week, a failed proposal to ban Chinese in North America’s Chinese-iest community, sinkholes in Nova Scotia and a B.C. senior citizen leaps to safety from a runaway van.

Richmond, B.C.’s Kerry Starchuk has a longstanding problem with not being able to read signs. Specifically, signs written in Chinese. So, along with a partner, she gathered a 1,000 signature petition calling on Richmond City Council to implement mandatory language controls to exorcise the city of Chinese-only signs.

The proposal was rejected almost immediately by councillors, who then issued a stirring defence of the free market. From the Richmond Review:

Coun. Evelina Halsey-Brandt said if consumers are miffed about the signs, they can speak with their wallets, and simply spend their loonies and toonies elsewhere.

“I believe that every business has the right to try to attract the customers of their choice. If they don’t want me to come into their store because they have not informed me of what kind of business they offer, then I will talk with my wallet and with my feet, and I won’t go into it.”

Another councillor speculated that the petitioners might just have a problem with Chinese people, who make up half the population — the highest proportion in North America. From CBC:

Coun. Derek Dang said non-English signs are actually quite rare — a recent count only found three Chinese business signs that had no English.

Dang said he’s afraid the push against Chinese-only signs may be a case of veiled racism.

Meanwhile, three time zones away in southeastern Quebec, a new organization was formed to lash out against the same kind of language protections laws that some British Columbians seems so eager to emulate. From The Record:

“CRITIQ [Canadian Rights in Quebec] is not a political party, nor does it aspire to be,“ [member Richard] Yufe said, explaining that the organization is […] seeking to “fill the gaps” in what members of the group see as two main issues in Quebec.

The first of these is a need for leadership with regard to the denunciation of language-based intolerance and discrimination in Quebec. The second is to advocate […] in favour of government policy that recognizes the equality of the French and English languages in Quebec.

Amid news of killer sinkholes in Florida, Central Nova Scotia got its own taste of the earth’s wrath when the ground gave way beneath an unsuspecting pedestrian — and on Pleasant Street, no less.

[…] “She slipped in the sinkhole under the road. She was completely down below the road level,” he [Windsor Fire Chief Scott Burgess] said.

Burgess says they were able to remove the woman from the sinkhole quickly, and place her on a rescue board without incident. He confirmed that she was hurt, but did not go into details about the extent of her injuries.

Elsewhere in Nova Scotia, a 24-year-old man was a handed a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail after police discovered he was using the postal system to amass a hoard of 32 stun guns. Each capable of delivering a 3.5 million volt shock, they may have been picked up from China for as little as $6 apiece. From the Yarmouth County Vanguard:

It was never said in court what [Scott] Nickerson was intending to do with the stun guns and the Canada Border Services Agency says it won’t speculate about his intentions. Nickerson’s lawyer Martin Pink also said he didn’t know what his client planned to do with them.

In Kamloops, B.C. a 43-year-old man was just about to hop into the driver’s seat of his 2006 Dodge Caravan — where two generations’ worth of friends and family were buckled — when it began to roll backwards down the driveway. The Daily News delivers a riveting account of the runaway car, and the grandmother who tuck-and-rolled her way to safety:

As the van picked up speed, the 66-year-old passenger, the owner’s mother, jumped out the door from her middle rear seat and tumbled down a grassy embankment.

That left her three-year-old granddaughter and five-year-old grandson buckled up in the rear seats and a 16-year-old family acquaintance in the front right passenger seat.

The Caravan continued on its course, sideswiping a 1998 Nissan and finally crashing into a house at 460 Dalgleish Drive.

The passengers, including the owner’s mother, suffered only “minor injuries and soreness,” according to the Daily News.

And in St. Catharines, Ont., an interview with retired Anglican bishop Right Rev. Ralph Spence on his “lifetime of appreciation” for flags, of which he has 3,000. From the St. Catharines Standard:

“There was a point where you’d never see a flag on a Canadian’s house, except occasionally. But it’s not uncommon now […] People are really flag-conscious today,” he said.